


Fool's Gambit

by ThereforeIAmAPipsqueak



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Crossover, Everything has Consequences, F/F, F/M, Grey Hermione Granger, Grey Petunia Dursely, Hari Uchiha, Hari would just like his family to stop being idiots, Hermione Granger messing up Dumbledore's plans since 1994, Hermione is done with everyone's shit, M/M, Ninja Harry, Petunia Dursely messing up Dumbledore's plans since 1981 (and not stopping anytime soon), Pre-Uchiha Massacre, Suspense, There might be pairings later one. I'm not sure, and maybe a nap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-01-05 01:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21205832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereforeIAmAPipsqueak/pseuds/ThereforeIAmAPipsqueak
Summary: In a world where Harry Potter never showed up to Hogwarts, Hermione Granger is desperate. Hunted on all sides by friends and enemies alike, her life has become a desperate struggle for survival in a swiftly deteriorating world. Her hunt for a trump card leads her to Hari Uchiha, the boy who had once been Harry Potter. Hari however has his own problems to deal with, a purist's war and a strange girl the least of his worries. Hermione refuses to take no for an answer and soon the two of them become trapped in a battle of wills that's consequences that will ripple throughout both worlds. Uchiha!Harry, AU





	1. When a Granger comes calling

Petunia Dursley, Hermione decided there and then, was a chameleon. And a bloody good one at that.

Hermione watches the woman over the edge of her folder, struggling to match the woman in front of her with the newspaper pictures and clippings Parvati and Lavender had obsessed over all those years ago. Where Petunia had once been blonde and waif like, an upcoming business woman renowned for her ruthlessness, now she stood as a dark haired, olive skinned, stocky woman.

She trudges from room to room in her search of the sugar, calloused and scarred hands slamming cupboards with a frown permanently fixed on her face. If it wasn't for the spark in her eyes, the long elegant curve of her neck that she failed to hide completely with her slumped shoulders and the distinctive shape of her ears, Hermione doubted even Petunia's mother would have been able to recognise her daughter in the woman in front of her. There was barely any signs to suggest the woman had ever belonged to any country but the one she currently resided in. But that was the idea Hermione supposed. Petunia's stereotypical appearance went a long way in helping her blend in with the locals.

Petunia finally finds the sugar pot in the cupboard the furthest from Hermione, stashed under half eaten boxes of pop tarts and hand painted mugs covered with childish slogans. Petunia grabs one of these mugs, Hermione just managing to catch the wobbly painted words "World's #1 Mum!" before Petunia walks past her and back to the kettle.

"One or two spoons?" Petunia asks over her shoulder, watching Hermione from the corner of her eye. Hermione shoots her a smile, straightening her papers on the table to hide her increasing irritation as she says as brightly as she can, "Two please." _Patience_, she thinks. _Patience, Hermione. You have time. No one knows you're here._

_Yet._

Petunia nods at her, one brisk movement of her head before she turns back to the tea and Hermione can no longer see what she's doing. Hermione takes this moment of reprise to fully look around the room she's in, cataloguing and memorising all the possible exits around her. The kitchen is small, a simple room of wood and marble that may once have been glamorous and expensive but was now so old, cracked and damaged that it was more of a safety hazard. It looked well-loved however, Hermione's reflection staring glumly back at her from the countertops and the wood glistening with polish. Through the open doorway was a narrow hallway, with three doors leading off of it. She knows from her stakeouts that the one on the end and the right leads to the lounge room and a balcony with a three storey drop. She's hoping she won't have to go over that way, but with her recent luck she wouldn't be surprised if it became her only escape option. Here's hoping she'd be able to Apparate away before the crash landing killed her.

Petunia, dropping her own mug roughly on the table across from Hermione, draws her attention back to the woman, just in time to see Petunia delicately place a teacup in front of her. It's China. Cheap, she discovers when she picks it up and takes a sip of the strangely fruity tea, but designed to appear worth more than it is.

"My son should be back from school by 2, so don't be too surprised when a loud noisy teenage boy comes barrelling in through the door and nearly knocks you over. He is quite energetic." Petunia says, seeming to fold in on herself as she sits in the chair across from Hermione, shoulders hunching forward to appear small. Beady eyes peer up at Hermione through the curtain formed from her fringe, staring at her but not seeing her. Mind distracted by some memory.

She can seen Petunia's roots, Hermione notes absently, shifting nervously when Petunia just continues staring. Their legs bump under the table and the small fleeting, melancholic smile on Petunia face drops as she seems to remember where she is. Hermione catalogues it away in the back of her mind. If it came down to it, her son, Dudley if Hermione remembered correctly, could be used as a final bargaining tool.

"So, now what exactly is it your organisation - SPEW was it?" At Hermione's nod Petunia continues, "What does SPEW advocate again?"

Though there's disgust in her voice Hermione can see the interested sparkle in her eyes, and silently she thanks the twins for managing to catch this opening into Petunia's home. Though she's now more of an ink blot then a calligraphy line, Hermione has it on good authority that if there was one thing Petunia still couldn't drop from her previous life it was her appreciation for elegance and strength in women. Even if Petunia herself had to drop it, had to become harder and rougher to help with her disguise, it didn't mean she couldn't still advocate for it when she could. As a small time bakery owner this role wasn't nearly as impressive as her previous one as the youngest second in command in one of the biggest business schools in England. That was were Hermione came in.

Straightening her spine, and trying her hardest to channel as much of the purebloods as she could - All charm, and grace and flashing red lips and poised limbs - Hermione begins her magic show.

"Well, as my partner no doubt told you, here at SPEW, the Society for the Promotion of Elegant Women we find it absolutely appalling that many young girls and women believe that to get ahead in life they have to abandon their femininity. At SPEW we annually host events, for both science, maths, business and entrepreneur opportunities. And that's why we're here, Mrs Fontanarosa -"

"Miss Fontanarosa." Petunia cuts her off with a scowl, but her eyes sparkle and Hermione can see the smile threatening to light up her eyes. "It's Miss. I'm afraid my husband is no longer with us."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Hermione says mildly. Petunia smiles thinly, as if sharing a joke with Hermione that only she knows. There's a pain behind her eyes.

"I'm not. He was an oaf of a man whose only redeeming quality was his ability in sport. When that fell through, he became a lumpy oafish man that offered nothing to the family. I was not sorry to see him go."

Hermione knows this is a lie. Knows it just as much as she knows that Vernon Dursley, now known as Owen Rositano, is currently a live in patient at Broadmoor hospital back in England. Certified paranoia and dissociative identity disorder according to his folder. They'd found him long before they'd found Petunia. He was a sad, sorry imitation of what he'd once been.

Unlike his wife, the passing of years hadn't been good to him. When he wasn't quiet, Vernon was raving, screaming loudly that his name was "VERNON FUCKING DURSLEY" and he didn't know who this bloody Owen Rositano was. There were few times his folder had claimed, were he'd seemed to come back to himself, we're he'd_ 'remembered_' who he was and Vernon Dursley had ceased to exist. These periods never lasted long however, and 'Owens conflict- resolution role alter' would always come creeping back out. Having one's identity completely erased could do that to you she imagined, turn you into the worst of yourself till nothing else seemed to be left and the illusion appeared more logical than the reality.

It was worse she supposed however when one was like Vernon Dursley, a special case where magic never seemed to hold properly. Slipping and bubbling off of him like burning oil poured into water. Hermione remembers the note's she'd read during his court case, about how the Magistrate had seemingly struggled with keeping this man bound with spells that he shrugged off like flies, further proving his point (or so he claimed) that _magic was not bloody real, it was all in their head and just they wait till the police found out about the damn cult..._

Hermione had had a theory bubbling in her head ever since she'd read those reports and seen the resulting conflict in Vernon when she's walked into the wards and promised him that she could heal him as long as he told her everything he could remember about Petunia and Vernon Dursley.

Her hypothesis as it went, was that people like Vernon, who seemed so utterly against magic, had magic themselves. It was just looped differently. Looped back in on itself, wound so tightly that it hid itself from everyone. But it was still there, lurking beneath the skin and working itself unconsciously to keep all magic as far away from its hosts as possible. A magical resistance if you will. A resistance that was passed down through family lines, the exact opposite of magic. The descendants of an Obscurial, Hermione theorised. Children who'd lived and managed to completely lock away a part of themselves so well that this resistance passed down to their children, and utterly cursed them from the moment they were born. Magic was just as much a part of their world as science. It was everywhere if one just knew how to look, and more than enough muggles had been driven mad by the simplest of tickle charms that Hermione believed her theory held more grounds than the one that all Muggleborn's had some form of squib ancestry in their background. Not that she could prove it, nor talk to any experts about it really. Being a wanted fugitive really did put a damper on one's educational opportunities.

Hermione smiles back at Petunia, all glistening teeth and awkward limbs. It was times like these that she wished Bianca was with her. Bianca Knobbles who could charm the pants off Narcissa Malfoy if she'd so wished, would have been the better bet for this job. Hermione was tactics and research. She'd always been. She was good at it. Brilliant.

This new skin she was force to wear felt tight and uncertain stretched across her bones.

"Well then Miss Fontanarosa, I believe that makes you even more suited to our goal than before. Please pardon my crudity, but a lot of the girls also linked to our program seem to believe that they need to be married to be counted as successful. Being married itself isn't bad, it is wonderful to have a partner you can share anything with. Or at least so my older colleagues tell me." Petunia smiles thinly at Hermione's attempt at a joke, "We believe in also showing them true perseverance." Here Hermione leans forward, going so far as to clasp Petunias hand within her own. Petunia looks startled for a moment, but she reluctantly lets Hermione carry on holding them as she continues, "A single mother of a teenage son, successful entrepreneur and manager of your own bakery and you still have time to speak to us and help out at charities? You, Miss Fontanarosa, are just what we've been looking for."

There it is. The spark has become a fire and Hermione can see the snare slowly closing around Petunia. It's in the way her hand tightens slightly around Hermione's own, the way she seems to almost puff up with pride even as she humbly tries to mutter "No, no. There is nothing special about that. It's my job to give back to my community."

Hermione grins at her, suddenly sweet and shy. "Can you tell me how you do it? How you manage everything so well, that your house looks amazing and your bakery is successful. I've always wondered how people manage it. I've never been quite so good with it myself."

Hermione knows Petunia knows she's sucking up to her. Her eyes gleam with a sick kind of amusement, feeding off of the attraction and power of having someone beneath her, someone acknowledging her superiority. And just like that, the trap closes.

"Well, my dear, I assure you I was just like you at your age. How old are you dear? No older than 25, surely?"

There it was, the sly snide comments to try and establish power by making one feel inferior. Hermione knew she didn't look any older than 18, and she knew Petunia knew this. Since she was presenting herself as a woman who might care about her appearance more than Hermione herself generally did, these comments would be used as a way to undermine her confidence. Make her doubt herself and as such establish Petunia as the dominant in their conversation. Hermione nearly breathes a sigh at the familiarity of it, having to physically bite her tongue to stop a sarcastic retort from rolling off its tip. She makes herself appear hurt, raising her hand to her face and she says, softer than before " I just turned 20 last month..."

Petunia makes a show of widening her eyes slightly as if in shock, before she tightens her hands on Hermione's own and plasters on a reassuring smile. "That's fantastic! Even better! To be so young and already aiming to achieve such goals and ambitions! SPEW must be more than excited to have you as one of their representatives. To be so clearly aligned with their goals." False affirmations, a facade to gain confidence, keep a small amount of loyalty and trust. Even as the predator ate the prey from the inside out.

Now was her chance. Looking up at Petunia from under her eyelashes Hermione let herself look vulnerable, silently preparing the spell under her breath. "You really think so?" She whispered and Petunias smile widened like a cat that had caught the canary. She'd guessed wrong, Hermione suddenly realised. Petunia was more of an Epomis Beetle then a Chameleon. Having evolved to eating from the inside out the creatures that had once eaten her. Or so she thought.

"Of course! Why when I was your ag-" There. That was it. Looking up fully, Hermione's eyes locked squarely with Petunias own, dark brown against cornflower blue. A silent "Legilimens" rolls through her body, and the kitchen and Petunias rattling voice fade from view as she finds herself pitched headfirst into Petunia Dursley's subconscious mind.

Hermione finds herself standing in a greenhouse, vined hallways stretching out for as far as the eye can see. She takes a moment to ground herself, to make sure she can still vaguely hear Petunia's voice in the back of her mind. As long as she keeps on talking this should be easier. She has 15 minutes tops before Petunia registers her vague staring and becomes suspicious and breaks eye contact. Not for the first time since she'd started this dead man's suicide mission did Hermione wish she had a partner with her. The risks for exposure were too high however, and besides the twins anyone else would have been too risk. As was always, she'd just have to make do with what she had.

Looking around herself Hermione frowns, taking in the elegantly curved dome roof above her and the rows of tall ornately carved white columns. Petunias, Lilies, Marigolds and other flowers - most more parasitic than others she notices in amusement- cram themselves on every available surface. A kaleidoscope of ever shifting colours.

She needs to figure out where exactly in the subconscious she's managed to wedge herself. And from there, if she can find a trigger, a word or any image related at all to the Potter boy, it would give her exactly what she needed.

Hermione approaches one of the doors leading off the passageway, counting her steps carefully as she does. One...two...three.. The Rules of Legilimency filter through her mind on a loop, sounding suspiciously like Theodore. "_Never trust anything you see in the mind unless you can verify it with facts. Never lose your concentration, focus on your anchor. Focus on finding triggers."_

One of the dangers of Legilimency no matter how great the Legilimens is, is the risk of becoming lost inside another's mind. The more complicated the mind, the more complicated navigating the mind becomes. Full of traps, false turns, dead ends and ever changing scenery. Losing one's concentration could lead to being trapped, or torn to pieces as the mind tried to fight against the intruder until eye contact was finally broken. And since some minds worked faster or slower than others did, no one could really be sure how long that could take. Five minutes on the outside, could be months on the inside. She'd made that mistake once when she'd been practising on Ron. For him barely five minutes of utter boredom had passed, but for her 3 weeks of utter hell had dragged on. His mind had been sharper than she'd expected and every moment in there had been like a long, intricate game of chess. She couldn't afford to make the same mistake with Petunia Dursley however. While Ron was sharp in his own way, he hadn't been hiding from the British Ministry of Magic for 5 years. Petunia had. Managing to 'misplace' the Wizarding World's prophesied hero did tend to make one quite a few enemies. Hermione still didn't know how she'd managed it, what strings she'd pulled or facade she'd played but somehow the Italian Ministry of Magic had taken pity on the "poor woman" who claimed she knew nothing about the child's disappearance. One moment Petunia Dursley had been on the front page of every wizarding paper from London to Vietnam, and the next, she had disappeared from sight and no one had the foggiest idea where she'd gone.

It was by complete luck that Hermione had first accidentally stumbled across Vernon during a raid on her hideout. She'd apparated to a vaguely remembered location to escape from the people attacking the old tin shed she had briefly taken residence in, and there he'd sat, easily familiar from when his face had accompanied his wife's on the newspapers during Hermione's first year at Hogwarts. It was only a series of lucky encounters and manipulated meetings with Vernon from there that finally resulted in her gaining enough information to track Petunia down. If it wasn't for the fact that she knew the Italian government had major issues with Dumbledore, she honestly would have considered it too easy, considering that the great and mighty, all knowing Dumbledore still didn't know where she was. As it was, they preferred her- a little, no body rumoured Muggleborn fugitive -over him any day.

Petunia's voice has become an echo in the greenhouse now, a hiccuping drone that filters in and out of her hearing.

"_My best advice for time management personally is always have a planner with you-"_

_Thirty-eight… thirty-nine… forty… _The door handle disappears under Hermione's hand. There's a brief flash of a blonde child laughing loudly, fat cheeks rounded with laughter. Hermione finds herself laughing along with him, the happiness Petunia felt in the memory seeping itself into her. It changes and the child is now a frustrated teenager with broad shoulders and a biker helmet, lip bloody. His hand is pressed to his cheek, his face turned away. Petunia's angry, scared. Proud. He's saying something but Hermione doesn't let herself focus on his voice. The emotions in here are too strong, too recent.

Petunia's voice is but a dim rumble in the background, yet Hermione forces herself to focus on it, feeling like she's swimming through molasses as she fights her way out of the memories. The door slams shut in front of her, her breathing now coming in gasps. Recent memories. Ones of Dudley, or Carlo as he was now known. She was close. She had go back further than that. Back to when he was a baby. _Forty-one… Forty-two… sixty-seven… sixty-eight_…

Moving down the hallway is slow and hard work. Memories swallow Hermione whole and spit her back out, feeling a bit more crumpled and horribly close to Petunia with each one. She's exhausted by the time she reaches the seventh door in the hallway, her hands shaking and the words _three hundred and ninety two _echoing in her head. She can feel the panic slowly beginning to seep into her brain, the stirrings of the fear that she's failed. But why would she succeed? If even Dumbledore himself hadn't managed to get the location of Harry Potter from the woman's mind, why would she?

_Because you have no other options left_, she reminds herself harshly, pushing herself forward. She braces herself for another onslaught of images as she opens another door, waiting for burning in her own head. To her surprise, nothing comes, and instead she finds herself standing on a front porch, staring down at the doorstep. Shocked sympathy building slowly in Petunia's chest. _November 1st, 1981_ echoes dimly in her head. A baby lays asleep on the step, quiet. She lets out a breath of relief, ignoring the strange pang in her chest at the strange sight. At least one of her problems has been solved. She's found it. She's finally found her trigger.

"Hello, Harry Potter" She whispers silently to herself, staring down at the jagged scar snaking its way across the baby's forehead. Well so much for the marked Chosen one cliche she silently curses, reaching out to touch the child as Petunia crouches down to pick him up with shaking fingers. Hermione's fingers briefly skim the top of his head before an sensation not unlike Apparition hooks straight through her spine and wrenches her forward . The scene melts away like water, droplets of memories landing on her eyelashes as she's catapulted through Petunia's memories of the boy. Grief. Awe. Anger. Snippets of arguments, screams. Freezing water, sagging ribs, pale eyes staring morosely at a mirror from steepled fingers. The same mirror, shattered. Pieces flying. Pain in her knuckles, the crunch of bone, of snow under boots. Subconsciously her hands come to her eyes, wiping the memories, and she's surprised to find her own tears, from the coat around her eyes. She keeps her eyes clenched for a moment longer, controlling her breathing as she recovers from the emotional whiplash she's just experienced. _Three hundred and ninety two_. When she finally pulls up the courage to open them she finds herself standing in a dark, dimly lit hallway. Hermione stares at in bewilderment, her eyes struggling to vaguely make out rows of shelves stretched out in front of her. She takes a step into the room, one single step. Wilted flowers, dry flakes of peeling paint and rotten wood crunch under her sneakers.

A voice rings out behind her.

"Who are you? You're not supposed to be in here." It's a child's voice, shrill and whiny. Hermione's body freezes, her head turning slowly to look behind her. _Four hundred_. A brief flash crosses her vision and then another. She blinks and suddenly there is a young girl half hiding behind one of the shelves. She's wearing a pale yellow lace dress and little buckle shoes, her blonde hair held back by an Alice band and her blue eyes curious as they stare at Hermione. There's red lipstick smeared across the bottom of her face, as if small hands had hastily tried to wipe it from her lips. When she notices Hermione's gaze on her own, she quietly repeats herself, eyes narrowing. "You're not supposed to be in here."

Hermione's eyes widen and she has to grab onto the closest shelf to stop herself from hurling herself out of Petunia's mind in panic. It seems Petunia had finally realised something was wrong. And if the child's quickly storming face was anything to go by she was not happy about it.

Hermione runs before the mind apparition can react properly, eyes skimming the spines of the books as she hurtles passed.

**Adrian Johnson.**

**Car crash.**

**Suzie Cunningham.**

**1970.**

**Dumbledore.**

_Four hundred twenty five. Four hundred twenty six. Four hundred twenty seven._

"Who are you?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!" The child's voice screams, echoing from all corners of the room around her, a loud clashing crescendo. She winces, slamming her hands against her ears. She sees the child to the left of her and turns right as sharply as she can.

Five hundred twenty three, five hundred twen... shit what was she up to? Shit! Shit shit shit!

She's gone too deep she realises with sickening clarity. She's managed to find herself in that part of Petunia's mind, the part where the unwanted memories and the bad things are locked up. What in God's name had Petunia Dursley done to that child?

_How the hell was she going to get out?!_

She's jumping down a flight of stairs before she even realises where she is, the foggy fingers of the apparition snagging at her jumper. She throws herself to the side at the last minute, trying to avoid the agonising pain she knows will come if she's touched. She is a parasite. Unwanted. The body and brain will do whatever it must to destroy that parasite. Even tear it apart. That's the funny thing about people. How protective and violent they can get when it comes to protecting their secrets.

She slams into a column and briefly finds herself disorientated, Petunia's older face and the kitchen she's sitting in flashing back into her eyes. She blinks and she's back in the library, scrambling to regain her footing as the apparition comes barrelling back towards her. She no longer looks like a child anymore, too distorted and lengthy. All sharp angles, faded grey limbs and sunken cheeks.

"Get away from there! GET AWAY FROM THERE!" She's screaming and Hermione realise her hands are on a door handle. It burns against her hand, a writhing, branding mark of lava. She can feel the skin on her palm melting; can almost imagine the scent of burning flesh. Hermione rips it open and throws herself through the doorway. The door slams shut behind her. Trapping her. There is a burning in her head. She scrambles back, wide eyed and terrified as the world around her suddenly shifts to red. These memories aren't like anything she's ever experienced. They're frost and anger and they burn in her throat. She can't just feel Petunia's memories in this emotion. Emotion seems to be all there is of this memory. She struggles to breath in, her chest constricting and her heart beating heavily in her ears.

She needs to get out.

She needs to get out.

She's too close now.

She can't.

Can't.

She fights her way forward, head spinning and mind disorientated. Feeling whatever Petunia was feeling in this moment.

Grief.

Sorrow.

Fear.

Brighter than anything else though is the anger, all consuming. Everywhere. Everywhere.

Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. EverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhere_EverywhereEverywhere._

_EverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhere._

_EverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhere._

_EverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhere_ _ **EverywhereEverywhere.** _

_ **EverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhereEverywhere** _ _._

And then, just like that, between one second and the next, it's gone.

Hermione falls to her knees on a wooden floor, coughing loudly and messily as the memory shudders and reforms around her. Grey puzzle tiles sliding into place from the recesses of Petunia's mind. In the edges of her rattled brain Hermione registers voices, a man and a woman, arguing and loud. She can't understand them. Her heart is beating in her head, her choking sobs echoing too loudly in her ears.

She can't have much time left.

She needs to get up.

Up.

Up.

UP

Getupgetupgetupgetupget_upgetupgetup_

Her limbs refuse to move however, and all she can do is lay there pathetically, cheek pressed uncomfortably into the cold, hard floor, watching the feet of whom she presumes is Petunia Dursley pace the floor in front of her. The boots are worn and flaking, the leather looking as if it has seen brighter days. The soles glisten with a caking of black dirt. As she watches a piece of moss seems to peel off from Petunia's heel, leaving a sticky, blue footprint indented in the wood.

Slowly the words of the people in the room trickle back into her consciousness, the clammer in her head quieting. Hermione frowns when she realises she can only understand half of the conversation.

"Don't. Don't you dare. You have more than enough resources to take in another child!"

The other voice in the room rumbles something in another language Hermione can't understand. It's melodic and sharp, the other person obviously not amused with whatever Petunia's saying. Petunia laughs, a loud scornful sound. Anger thrums heavily in Hermione's chest, her throat clogging with a swallowed scream.

"Bullshit. If you're going to refuse, then at least try to make your excuse believable!"

There's a loud thud and Hermione slowly lifts her head to find a younger Petunia squaring off against a man twice her size. His hair is dark and pulled back in a tight ponytail, face murderous. To Petunia's credit she doesn't back down, simply straightening her shoulders and continuing to glare. The man repeats whatever it was he said before, eyes boring a hole in Petunia's head. Petunia grins and not particularly nice grin straight back at him, resting her hands against the desk and leaning forward until they're practically nose-to-nose.

"You may have the potential for a war starting but there _is_ currently a war going on back there. And I will not be dragged into it. This does not involve my kind. It never did"

The man draws back at this and snarls something, gesturing first at himself and then Petunia. Though Hermione can't understand what he's saying she can understand the meaning. If it doesn't involve you, why would it involve me.

"Because," Petunia stresses, sounding pained and as if he's stupidest person she's ever had the misfortune of talking to, "if whatever it was that was strong enough to kill both Lily and her husband comes for you, you have a whole family, a whole village even, to protect you. I don't. I don't have magic, and I don't have chakra. I'm as civilian as it gets and if it comes down to protecting my family against these freaks, I'm as dead as it gets too."

Petunia suddenly slumps herself back into the chair behind her, her head in her hands.

"Please, Fugaku. Lily tried to protect us from the worst of it when she was in school, but things would always still slip through the cracks. Off hand comments, jokes a bit too dark for her age… I know what these people have done, but I don't even have anything inkling of what they are fully capable of." Petunia murmurs down towards her neck, blonde hair hanging like a brides veil to obscure her face, "Heck, Lily _knew_ what they were capable of she still ended up _dead._ You're the child's last hope Fugaku. If you don't take him in, I'm scared I might kill him." Hermione notices the look of horror that flashes across the man's face, no doubt mirroring her own. His hand creeps towards his belt. A wizard then Hermione supposes, briefly letting her eyes shut again, knowing she should probably commit everything she can about him and the room around them to memory. But everything is still somewhat fuzzy around the edges, Petunia's voice in the real world humming in her head like a lullaby. The sudden flaring of smugness rolling through Petunia has her opening her eyes with a groan however, cracked eyes barely catching the brief flit of a smile on Petunia's face, the flicker of her eyes on a photo on the desk, before she's looking back up at this Fugaku.

"If it had to come down to protecting my own child or Lily's, you _know_ I'd be selfish enough to choose my own." Petunia's eyes appear red rimmed and slightly glassy, and if this is still an act as the emotions rolling around inside of Hermion indicate, she has to admit that Petunia is a bloody good actor. "I'm sure you'd do the same for your own son if the opportunity arose Fugaku. How old is the boy? Four months now? Five?"

The man stays quiet to Petunia's accusation, his silence all but confirming his agreement. The smugness is growing now, exciting Petunia. Strangely enough there's a vein of something else there as well, bitter and twisted as it coils in the back of Petunia's emotions. Before she can analyse it too deeply however, something Petunia says catches Hermione's attention and like a sledgehammer has slammed into her, her attentions is yanked back to the scene before her.

"I know we're only distantly related Fugaku, very, _very distantly_. But If Lily's friendship and time with your wife means anything to you, then please take the child. He still has some Uchiha blood in him. His magic, chakra or whatever the hell you call it is still untrained. He will fit in. He will live. If you don't take him, even that's not guaranteed."

The man, Fugaku, spits something at Petunia and she smiles grimly, leaning back in her chair and pushing her hand through her hair.

"Yes, I suppose I am. But if that is what it takes to get you to take the brat then I'll blackmail you anyway I can. Emotionally is the least intrusive one, don't you think?"

Fugaku looks as if he's about to explode, a muscle in his jaw twitching. Finally he hisses something at Petunia, that Hermione can quite clearly see is a '**Get Out**'. He's obviously agreed to the terms if the grin on Petunia's face is anything to go by, the woman uncoiling from the chair like a striking snake.

"Smart move, Uchiha-san" She bows, suddenly respectful and simpering. Hermione can see the mocking smile curling around her lips. "I, however, do still need a place to stay the night, so I hope you don't mind me inviting myself to stay with you. You wouldn't want me wondering around Konohagakure so late at night would you? It would be terribly rude, no?"

The look on Fugaku's face clearly indicates he doesn't give a damn about being terribly rude, and if he had it his way he'd throw Petunia out on her ass. But for no discernible reason that Hermione can see he simply stiffens and gives a single nod, eyes narrowing at the smile curled around Petunia's lips. They continue talking to one another for a while, but Hermione has tuned them out, rolling onto her back to stare disbelievingly at the ceiling above her. Somehow Lily and Petunia Evans were related to a _wizard_. And not just any wizard, her brain whispered as it finally took note of the high arched ceilings and wooden and rice papered doors. But apparently a wizard, in a mythical city. 

But that wasn't possibly surely? Petunia must just have been insane. There was no way at all that she was somehow related to a man in a magic ci-

The liight from a circle of metal fans snaps Hermione's gaze to the row of portraits of old, angry looking wizards dressed far stranger than any British wizard Hermione had seen. There's something about them that arrests her for a moment, drags her attention to them and leaves her staring at them in befuddlement. Now that she was paying attention to them, they all looked vaguely related to one another.

It was something about their jaws she thinks as she states at them. They're all vaguely reminiscence of each other in that weird, blocky way that came with years of in-breeding. Or maybe that was just the scowls she supposed, the same flat eyed expression stretched out before her in rows and rows of painted semblance.

The voices behind her flare up suddenly. The feeling indignation burrowing like a hot rod in Hermione's chest to drag her attention from the portraits back towards Petunia with sluggish interest. Ah. Was she still there??

..... Oh she looked angry. It was definitely the scowling that made them all look similar. The same set of patterns mapped out perfectly along Petunia's own face-

No.

This wasn't right.

She was forgetting something.

She didn't give a bloody rats arse about the family's scowls. 

Like a worm burrowing through rot, she could feel something trying to make its way to the forefront of her mind, sharp and achingly foreign. The words Konohagakure echoed softly in her brain, looping around and around again until they drown out the voice's around her. 

Konohagakure. _Konohagakure_. Why was the name so familiar? Konohagakure. Ko. No. Ha. Ga. Ku. Re.

No. Surely that wasn't it. She must have heard Petunia wrong she decided with a frown, biting her lip, so distracted by her thoughts that she didn't realise that the emotions flowing through her from Petunia had disappeared abruptly. 

Saying Harry Potter was in Konohagakure was like saying he was in Avalon. It was a _dead_ city. Another world from when wizards were so arrogant so as to believe that could create their own realities, one away from mortals. It was a legend, a testament to the limits of magic. There was no way Harry Potter was in Konohagakure. It didn't make any sense. Konohagakure was nothing more than stories found in Japanese wizards and witches fairy tales. It didn't exist. This was ridiculous. Her brain was stuck on that fact, looping it back and back at her even as the evidence that maybe, just maybe it did, stared her blank faced in the memory of Petunia Dursley.

Whoese memory, Hermione was suddenly and quite disgruntled to find out was staring back at her. Eye's glowing from the shadows.

"You shouldn't be here" The older Petunia said, head cocking to the side in an eerily familiar imitation of the child from before. However where the child had seemed violent and angry, this Petunia was sharp, amused at this intrusion. The room around them is suddenly empty, nothing but her and Petunia, and the sharp eyed portraits watching on with their rows of burning red eyes. The space Fugaku had occupied is empty.

"Oh dear" this Petunia continues, rising from her seat in a sudden jerk of limbs, like a puppet in the hands of a toddler. "You've been here quite a while haven't you my dear. Look at you, you poor thing. "

The tone of Petunia's voice indicates that if anything, the only thing she finds poor about this situation is the fact that Hermione has let herself be caught.

"You're much more subtle than the others I'll give you that. You've gotten much _much_ further than any of them. You must really really want to know something." She punctuates her words with a small, mocking clap that echoes in Hermione's ears like claps of thunder.

Her brain sticks on the word _others _for a moment though, and her stomach sinks further with horror that she really shouldn't be surprised at the fact that the rumours of Dumbledore and the Ministry's interrogation having involved Legicimancy on _muggles_ were true. Not that she was any different to them now however she suppoused, though it still wasn't as much comfort as it had been any other time she found out her and Ministry had shared an illicit hobby.

Petunia's boots are suddenly in front of her, the blue mossy footprint distractng Hermione's tired brain as the memory observes her, lips curled. From the gap between Petunia's boots and the end of her pant leg Hermione realises there's a sigil of some sort burned into the woman's skin. A circle that appears split in half by a half moon, a rectangle jammed somewhat haphazardly on the bottom.

"You lot are all really the same" Petunia tssk's and somewhere between the one breath and the next she is crouching over Hermione's still aching form, examining her like she's shit on the end of her boot. A frizzle of fear shoots straight to the forefront of Hermione's brain, like a shock of lightning that pushes the fuzzy befuddlement to the back of her mind as all the reasons she should not have let this _thing_ get so close to her suddenly screams in her head.

A smile, feral and filled with far too many teeth, stretches across Petunia's skin when she notices the terror in Hermione's eyes. "Oh you are a strong one " She purrs, resting her chin on the palm of her hand, "No matter however. You're already loosing time. I can see it. Your head must be feeling so heavy right now dearest. Why don't you just close your eyes for a moment hmm? Go to sleep and forget any of this ever happened?" She tssks, fingertips dancing a hairs width from the top of Hermione's nose," You've been in here far far too long. Fighting won't get you what you want. So come now, just close your eyes. Yes, good girl, just like that. See? How ea-"

_"-asy_" Petunia's voice, rough and accented, splinters the air around them, cracking through Hermione's foggy head like a whip that she grabs onto and grounds herself with. And before the memory Petunia can do so much as snarl, lunging towards Hermione with a rattling scream, Hermione _throws herself out._

She comes back to herself with a start, her teacup clattering to the floor and shattering.

Her head throbs, and she can smell burnt hair, her brain insisting the tips of her curls are singed from the apparitions fingers even as her eyes tell her there's nothing there.

Fighting to calm her brain from the disconnect she's experiencing Hermione snaps her gaze back to Petunia. Petunia sits across from her, wide-eyed and pale.

Hermione can feel, dimly, sweat beading on her forehead and the steady trickle of along her top lip. She stumbles out of her chair, glancing at the clock on the mantle as she does. 10 minutes. She was only in there for 10 bloody minutes.

"Are you ok my dear? You seem rather vacant..." Petunia's voice floats to her as if she's under water, the woman's own voice sounding strained. She hasn't realized yet what has happened, her brain still trying to process the information and click it together. Hermione has not doubt that sooner or later Petunia would be able to figure out what she's done. Petunia Dursley was swiftly turning out to be much more of a threat then Hermione had originally thought. The amount the woman seemed to know was astounding for a muggle who'd always professed such a hatred for magic.

Shakily slipping her wand out of her sleeve as she wipes at her eyes, Hermione stares at Petunia under her eyelashes. The woman scrambles backwards when she catches sight of the wand , her chair crashing to the ground as even in her hazy state her mind recognises the danger she's in. She's gone incredibly pale, the shadows under her eyes seeming to darken underneath her terror.

For a moment, one single moment she almost looks like the scared, vulnerable woman from the newspapers. But then she blinks, eyelids raising lazily over irises that seem to flash red for the briefest second before dark brown floods them through again. Then, like a light bulb has been switched on, her face darkens and Hermione experiences a moment of Deja Vu as Petunia lunges towards her, face wrenched into a terrified snarl as she realises what has happened.

"Yo-"

"Obliviate"

A few minutes later Hermione is stumbling out the three storey block of apartments as if she's drunk, a vial of wispy silver liquid tucked safely in her pocket and a bag of tea cup shards in her right hand. She runs into Dudley on the stairs, blonde hair spiked high into a mohawk and a split lip gracing his face. The younger boy gives her a wide berth, staring at her with large and worried eyes as she practically falls down the stairs and makes her way down the road. For a moment she briefly considers kissing him in celebration, but a wave of tiredness quickly reminds her she's running on limited time and she quickens her pace. No doubt she looks drunk. Or high.

She doesn't care however.

She'd done it.

She'd actually done it.

She'd found Harry Potter.


	2. Enter Stage, Left.

It's 2 o'clock in the morning and Harī knows he needs to get up soon. It's cold outside; raining. Not hard enough to rattle the panes in the window, but just hard enough to send the glass wavering, like a hummingbird’s heartbeat.

Harī traces the cracks in his ceiling with his eyes, focusing on his breathing. He can feel alertness slowly seep back into his limbs; a sticky, cold sheen of sweat chilling him to his bones. His body tries to shiver as a breeze from the open windows plays across his chest, but his limbs are still stiff, bones locked tight, and the shiver can't quite work its way through his body.

Beneath his eyelids his dreams still lurk, rearing to the forefront of his mind each time he blinks. Flashes of colour. Flames, roaring across a blackened, rubble strewn street. Hooded people moving and surging around him. Hands grasping and tearing at his clothes, voices raised in a fervid cry. Revenant. Terrified. They mingle in a rattling chorus that still echoes in his ears. His fingers twitch and he curls them tighter, to grasp something important he remembers being there. His hand is empty however and the small movement sends his side into spasms. Pain rises from somewhere behind his navel, forcing him to curl up to stop from vomiting. His breathing is shaky, pained and vaguely in the back of his mind he swears loudly in irritation. If Tekka or Ryouta or any one of his mentors decides now is a great time for a early morning training session, he’s screwed. His fingers are numb, and he knows from the weeks of experience his dreams have given him, that they’ll be numb for at least another two hours after. And training with numb hands can only lead to more pain and suffering in the long term.

His side twinges with the memory of a phantom wound, and instinctively his hand moves to apply pressure to the sizzling, burnt flesh that his body seems to think is there. He welcomes the ability to move again with a quiet huff of pain. Everywhere his muscles are aching, a dull throb reminiscent of fatigue and muscle exhaustion instead of the calm relaxation that should come with sleep. He's finding that happening a lot lately. Waking up feeling more exhausted than when he went to bed.

He moves slowly as he swings his legs off the bed, pressing his feet firmly into the wooden floor below him. He was dreaming about some type of raid again, he thinks. A violent, bloody, burning mess that could almost have been called a war if it wasn't for how small and secretive it had been. He had some vague recollections of sneaking through hallways at the beginning of the dream, of rough stone scraping against his hand and the burning feeling of excitement, of waiting for something that is he knows is inevitable. His little secret.

His dreams had contained the usual crowd again, as always. Their shadows slinking behind and around him. The pale three that looked like they’re carved from stone, with their high arching brows and tight lips. The brothers, redhead and wild, cruel in their cynicism and attentions, eyes glinting with anger. The hissing man. Tonight, unlike most nights he dreamed, they were accompanied by the woman that reminded Harī of Anko in the way she carried herself. As if she could see some giant joke in the world around her that only she could understand. Only this one was crazier. Much, much crazier than Anko.

There were others, vague familiar faces that he's seen here and there. He thinks a lot of them are related, notices it in the cut of their jaws and the slant of their noses as they pull elaborate masks on. As always he's never sure though. Even though he's aware of the dreams being just dreams when he's in them, he can never seem to manipulate anything around him. He’s simply dragged along for the ride.

Harī's movements are still sluggish as he pulls his clothes on. Brain itching, like a spark has settled between his eyes and is slowly going off. Eyes still sticky with sleep. He can't even risk attempting to catch a few more minutes. Not when there's a chance he could get pulled under again and not be able to wake up till the dreams run its course.

Fragments of the dream dance across his eyes, disjointed and unfitting. What happens after the initial meeting is a blur. Pieces that should fit together but don't quite. There's more hallways, some intact, some destroyed. Moonlight and cloaked figures, moving like an ocean that he’s not part of, but moving against. Streets and shady corners, where their knives are sharper and the screams are quieter. A wall with bricks that shift and twist and turn in on themselves like water down a drain, moving and shifting with no common pattern. Harī has to wonder just what that says about his mind. For a brief moment he contemplates stopping in at the hospital on his way out, to get a proper check up, to make sure everything's alright. Just as quickly he dismisses the idea however. It wouldn't do to let anybody know there's anything wrong with him, even if there's only a small chance. It's probably just residual stress from preparing for the Jounin exams. Nothing more.

He finishes tying the ties on his kunai holster, rolling his neck to work out the kinks knotted beneath the skin. His fingers are cold now, and he knows from experience that they're likely to remain numb for at least another two hours. He’ll have to keep the kids running through kicks then, he concedes silently to himself, refusing to live through the embarrassment of barely being able to hold onto the kunai and senbon after the last time he tried training with numb fingers. The little brats still hadn’t let him live it down.  
  
The only other part of the dream that he can remember in great clarity is when they’d turned a corner and found two boys and two girls standing their ground on the end of the street. The world is burning around them. From somewhere above him he hears wood groaning and the clamour of birds screeching, the scent of burnt feathers and flesh drenching the alley like a rich woman's perfume. The whizzing colours have stopped for the most part but there's no sense of relief. There's a danger in the air, an uneasy waiting that comes before any fight that after all these years Harī still hasn't learnt to love. His dream self is not concerned however. It's nothing serious. So he moves on.  
  
A voice speaks out in the thrumming air, strange, lilting, and so far from his own that it takes Harī a moment to realise it's him talking. Whatever he says makes the boy to the far left let out a roar in anger, the tall, slim girl just managing to catch him by the back of his clothes as he goes to lunge forward, reckless in his anger. 

Before he can spend too long pondering hits one of the teens fires a beam of light at him, fear making his face ashen. Harī barely moves, just flicks his fingers, and the beam of light smashes into the building next to him, disintegrating mortar and propelling bricks into the air. Large chunks slam into hastily thrown up shields.  
  
When the dust clears, the children are gone, and the world is oddly muted. He tilts his head for a moment. Amused. There’s something in the air, left behind, and bitter. The scent is hot, the only way he can think to describe it, and it heats his skin and makes him feel warm, contented. His ears feel as if they’ve been stuffed with cotton wool.  
  
As if the battle cry has gone up, the cloaked figures from behind him surge out, supernaturally quiet as they take up the hunt through the destroyed street. He basks in the silence for a few more moments, all senses muted. The excitement all but bursting out of his skin, consuming him as he searches for something. Chakra signatures- or what Harī presumes is chakra signatures- race back to meet him, the pulse of their energies vibrating against his skin in time to his heartbeat. He feels a smile curl across his lips. And then as if something has indeed exploded from him, the taste disappears and like whiplash, something breaks, and the sound of the alley way rushes back to him. Overwhelming, it surrounds him. Loud and pounding, chaos brought to life. And it is in this chaos, with the children up ahead, screaming for one another as the figures corral them-seperate them from one another and run them down- that the most confusing part of his dream occurs.

One moments he’s laughing, basking in the chaos and power surrounding him. In the next, pain wrecks up his side, sticky and cold. There’s a gasp, a murderous shriek, he turns and rears forward. Dark eyes, wild hair. Terror made ugly on childish features. One of the previous girls, whose looped back around and stands facing him down. Stick raised. Amusement burns hotly in this stomach. Whether it's Harī's own amusement at the stick or his dream selves amusement at something else, he's not sure. He’s finding it disconcertingly hard to separate his own emotions from those in the dreams lately.

Here is where his dream melts again into disjointed fragments and pieces. Next he’s facing the girl again, her eyes glossy and horrified as he raises a glass as if toasting her. She swallows, starts choking. Heaving, horrible, gasping sounds that never quite finish. He says something that makes a scream ring out, wailing and shrill, like a mourning mother. After that there's nothing but colours and the screaming, eclipsing his vision and sending his mind swirling like water down a drain. There's no visual from here, at least not any he remembers, only a noise, loud and victorious and triumphant.   
Though it means nothing to him, it sends his heart racing and fills him with a heady sense of excitement. Head throbbing Harry lets his eyes slide back to his bed, puzzling over the strangeness of his own brain. On an impulse he forms the noise echoing in his head, as if forming them will purge them from his brain. To his muffled ears, they almost sound like words. Almost.

Shaking his head at his silliness, Harī ties his hitai tightly around his waist and slides quietly down the hallway to the rain soaked world outside. The strange sounds the chosen one is dead still echoing in his head.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought! Inbox is always open to theorising and constructive criticism. :)


End file.
